


Bad News

by icarus_chained



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Noir, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Attraction, Desire, Detective Noir, Detectives, F/M, Major Character Injury, Murderers, Revenge, clients, misfortune
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 09:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7752622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Detective Vex'ahlia knew that boy was bad news the moment he walked in, with his white hair and his shaking hands and his face like a betrayed angel. She knew he was gonna be the one who got her killed. She took him on anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad News

**Author's Note:**

> Basically just a random short flavour piece because I love noir and I love Vex and she makes such a wonderful noir PI and Percy makes such a _fabulous_ femme fatale.

Funny thing about getting shot: sometimes it took you a while to figure out what had happened. You felt it, felt the sucker punch knock you down, knock the wind out of you, but sometimes it took a couple more seconds before you really _understood_ what the hell just hit you.

Vex lay there blinking up at the warehouse rafters above her. Noise kept going around her, even sped up some, gunshots and yells and what sounded like one or two cries of absolute anguish, so close on each other they were layered together to almost one sound, but it was all very distant all of a sudden. Far away. She lay there on her back, her hands drifting soft and scrabbling towards her stomach. The pain surged, appalling, _nauseating_ , and she had to fight not to curl her fingers in the sticky red mess they'd made of her blouse. Gutshot. Well damn. How about that?

Thing of it was, she wasn't even all that surprised. Not really. Somehow she'd half expected something like this. Not premonition, necessarily. Just instinct, darling. She'd always had pretty good ones, generally. Had to, to survive long down here, in the seedy underside of Emon. She'd known all along, right from the off, that this was the one case she should never have taken. Money or no damn money. She'd known it would end in tears. 

It was the boy, you see. She'd known the moment she saw his face, felt the surge of interest sizzle its way up her spine. She'd known from the start that boy was bad news. First rule of thumb, first thing you learned on this job. The pretty ones always were.

And whatever else he was, Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III was terribly, _terribly_ pretty.

He'd had the face of an angel, walking into the office she and her brother shared, looking for someone to help him track down the remains of his family fortune. Nervous, intelligent, with that intriguing shock of white hair like a dusty halo around his head. He wanted to track down some family heirlooms, he'd said, find out where they'd ended up after his parents' death had liquidated their estate. He'd had clever hands with a shake in them, delicate and interesting and _pained_ , and he'd promised that he'd pay bonuses from whatever they discovered on top of their standing fee. Money and charm. He'd had her number from the off.

He'd suckered her, was what he'd done. Wryly and knowingly, open-palmed and lying through his teeth and happily aware that both of them knew it. He'd pulled her in even in spite of her instincts, the shiniest lure she'd ever seen, and honestly she should have realised then that he was going to be the one to get her killed. 

She _had_ realised then. She'd known it all along.

Pretty boys didn't come to Emon's slums with money in their hands just to track down some old desk belonging to their dad. They didn't offer bonuses to down-on-their-luck bastards-turned-detectives just for some old paintings in some rich guy's basement. His hands shook for a reason, Percival. They were the kind of hands that wanted some blood on 'em.

And the ... the thing was, Vex thought, gritting her teeth while her own blood painted hers, _the thing was_ , she didn't actually blame him for it. Couldn't blame him for it. Not once she'd seen who he was really hunting. Not once Vax had handed her the police files he'd 'liberated', the pages of notes and clinical photos of the 'Whitestone Massacre' and the family that had been wiped out overnight. Not once she'd listened to Lady Delilah Briarwood explain calmly and slightly chidingly that there'd been no particular hatred behind it, no particular reason, it was just that they'd been in the way. Old families and old secrets, you know. Sometimes you simply had to clear the board in order to use things as they were meant to be used. The de Rolos had been entirely undeserving of their ancestral assets. She'd merely thought it time for some fresh blood.

 _Lots_ of fresh blood. Lots and lots and lots of it. Enough to paint a house, and leave behind one battered, beautiful angel with white hair and shaking hands and murder in his heart.

Vex should have dropped him the minute they'd found out. The moment those files had passed into her hands, Vax's suspicions clearly justified and Percy's lies clearly laid out, she should have cut him loose, money and charm and shaking hands be damned, because Percival de Rolo was exactly the kind of client that you just _did not take_. He was the kind of client that got you killed. They'd all known it. Even Percy. As soon as he'd seen that file, the expression on Vax's face, he'd known what sanity and basic self-preservation would demand they do. He'd expected it. Accepted it, even. He'd smiled tiredly, folded his shaking hands into his lap, and simply offered to settle up for the hours they'd already put in. No protest. No surprise.

Maybe that was what had done it, Vex thought. That lack of surprise. That quiet acceptance, just on the edges of despair. That wry smile, the apology for having lied, the hands trapped trembling against each other around the photographs of his murdered family. She'd _known_ she shouldn't keep him. She'd known she _couldn't_ keep him, couldn't in any way afford the kind of trouble clients like Percy landed on a detective's head. She'd known, she'd known. Right that second. She had known.

And Vax, looking at her face right then, had known too. He'd known ... that she wasn't going to let it go. He'd known she wasn't going to let _Percy_ go. He'd looked at her, her brother, and he'd seen it right then and there.

This was why they were such bad news, she thought, half laughing and half crying as the pain washed distantly through her. This was why the pretty ones were _always_ bad news. They went to your head. They made you forget things, made you ignore things, made you do things you really, really shouldn't do. They just ... they made you want. Beyond your means, so much more than a small timer like you could ever afford. They made you do such stupid, _stupid_ things.

And, she thought, while the sounds of gunshots died away and a white-haired angel clattered noisily to her side, they made you do it _gladly_. They made you do it knowing how it was going to end. They made you think it worth it anyway.

"No," the angel rasped, low and furious and desperate, his shaking hands reaching for her bloodied ones, drawing to a stuttered, palsied stop before they touched. "No, oh no. Vex, no. Please. Please no." 

His eyes were wild, staring. Mindless with grief and terror, all of it for her. His face was white and drawn with pain. He'd been up on the gantry, he must have damn near broken something to get down here so fast. He had powder burns on his cheek, flecks of blood in his white, _white_ hair. A bloodied halo, for the most beautiful fallen angel in all the world. He looked at her like she was the most terrible, heartbreaking thing he'd ever seen. Well damn, Vex thought distantly. Hot damn. What a thing to have beside you as you go.

"Get the _fuck_ out of the way, de Rolo," another voice snarled, low and shaking and as furiously desperate as the first, and then her brother was there. Moving Percy aside, shoving her angel violently out of the way. Vex nearly protested, only just swallowed a petulant little gripe, and then the pain _roared_ , screamed up through her as Vax pressed his hands down over her loosening ones, and all thoughts of angels, fallen or otherwise, fled from her head. Thought went away. All of it. The world went black and blind for one endless, strangling second.

She made a noise. Heard it, heard herself. An ugly, horrible, whimpering thing, too breathless to be a scream. Someone choked out a sob beside her. Not Vax. Vax only bore down, all his tears caught in his throat, his voice, where she could hear them.

"Hold on, Vex. Damn it, Stubby, hold on. Pike's coming. We're gonna get you to a hospital. You just have to _hold on_."

"... I'm sorry," Percy breathed behind him, distant and stuttering in his horror. Vex wanted to reach out to him, wanted to soothe him and tell him it was okay. She couldn't. The world was so very far away all of a sudden. "I'm so sorry. It wasn't supposed to be her. Not her. It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't ..."

Oh but it was, darling, Vex thought, as the world finally faded away. Trying to hold on, trying to reach back, trying to smile at the pair of them wryly. It was. It was always meant to be this way. She'd known. This was what you got for being greedy. This was what you got for wanting something you knew you couldn't afford, knew you'd end up paying for in blood. The moment he'd walked in that door. The moment she'd decided to keep him. She'd known it was going to be this way. She'd been okay with it. She'd accepted it just fine.

'Cause sometimes, you know, when a bloodied angel fell into your lap, you just had to take your chances on keeping him. Bad news or no bad news. If you had the least bit of greed in your soul, you just couldn't let that go.

And if there was one damn thing Vex'ahlia had always been, it was greedy to the bone.


End file.
